By Nguyen Cao Ky with Marvin J. Wolf

In a memoir as audacious and charismatic as the disarmingly young pilot who led South Vietnam’s first air strike against the North, Ky presents the inside story of Saigon’s intrigues and tribulations. Sure to bruise American egos and to spark controversy with its blunt talk and shocking revelations, Buddha’s Child is the first lengthy account by a top South Vietnamese leader of the pivotal events and major personalities of Vietnam’s bloody, two-decade debacle. Viewing such familiar historical personalities as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Dean Rusk, William Westmoreland and Henry Kissinger through Ky’s eyes is sure to trouble those who have decided the Indochina conflict was a costly failure owed to cowardly and corrupt Vietnamese. While the war remains an unfortunate chapter in America’s past, however, those willing to view history as a work in progress will appreciate Ky’s perceptive portraits, insightful recollections and forthright opinions. Perhaps for the first time, they will also apprehend America’s tragic, almost willful failure to understand neither friend nor foe, for which millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans paid the ultimate price.